‘Mr. 3000,’ a baseball movie about an arrogant athlete’s redemption, turns 20

Bernie Mac starred in a very different baseball movie, about a Barry Bonds-like baseball star who sees the error of his ways.

There have been a lot of great and not-so-great baseball movies over the years, all of them cataloged by my colleague Noah Gittell in his recent Baseball: The Movie. But Mr. 3000, from 2004, does something a bit different from all of the others: It has a protagonist who, right from the start, is shown as an arrogant jerk. 

The film — which arrived 20 years ago this month — starred comedian Bernie Mac as Stan Ross, a star baseball player very clearly inspired to some degree by Barry Bonds, or at least the reputation he held in the latter part of his career; there’s also a touch of Pete Rose, another hit king whose horrible behavior has come back to bite him repeatedly. Ross shares another thing with Bonds and Rose- despite having the numbers, he’s been kept out of the Baseball Hall of Fame. 

Selfish, arrogant, and not particularly friendly towards his teammates, fans, or sportswriters, Ross is introduced getting his 3000th hit, grabbing the ball from a kid, and then immediately announcing his retirement from the game in the middle of a pennant race. 

Seven years after his retirement, Ross has made “Mr. 3000” his whole identity, using it for endorsement opportunities. 

Ross has a jersey retirement ceremony skipped by all of his old teammates (Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, and Cecil Cooper are name-checked as absent.) Then, a clerical error is discovered: Three hits were double-counted, leaving him short of the 3000 mark. So Ross attempts a comeback at age 47, returning to the Brewers with all of that old arrogance but little of the old skill.